Jan of the Windmill eBook

“I be thinking,” continued Master Chuter,
“of a gentlemen as draad out that mare of my
father’s that ran in the mail. You remember
the coaches, Daddy Angel?”

“Ay, ay, Master Chuter. Between Lonnon
and Exeter a ran. Fine days at the Heart of
Oak, then, Master Chuter.”

“He weren’t a sign-painter, that I knows
on. A were somethin’ more in the gentry
way,” said Master Chuter, not, perhaps, quite
without malice in the distinction. “He
were what they calls in genteel talk a” —

“Artis’,” said Master Linseed, removing
his pipe, to supply the missing word with a sense
of superiority.

“No, not a artis’,” said Master
Chuter, “though it do begin with a A, too.
‘Twasn’t a artis’ he was, ’twas
a” —

“Ammytoor,” said the travelled sign-painter.

“That be it,” said the innkeeper.
“A ammytoor. And he was short of money,
I fancy, and so ’twas settled a should paint
this mare of my father’s to set against the
bill. And a draad and a squinted at un, and
a squinted at un and a draad, and laid the paint on
till the pictur’ looked all in a mess, and then
he took un away to vinish. But when a sent it
home, I thought my vather would have had the law of
un. I’m blessed if a hadn’t given
the mare four white feet, and shoulders that wouldn’t
have pulled a vegetable cart; and she near-wheeler
of the mail! I’d lay a pound bill Jan Lake
would a done her ever so much better, for as young
a hand as a is, if a’d squinted at her as long.”

“Well, well, Master Chuter,” said the
painter and decorator, rising to go, “let the
boy draw pigs and osses for his living. And I
wish he may find paint as easy as slate-pencil.”

Master Linseed’s parting words produced upon
the company that somewhat unreasonable depression
which such ironical good wishes are apt to cause;
but they only roused the spirit of contradiction in
Master Chuter, and heightened his belief in Jan’s
talents more than any praise from the painter could
have done.

“Here’s a pretty caddle about giving a
boy’s due!” said the innkeeper.
“But I knows the points of a oss, and the makings
of a pig, if I bean’t a sign-painter.
And, mark my words, the boy Jan ’ull out-paint
Master Linseed yet.”

Master Chuter spoke with triumph in his tone, but
it was the triumph of delivering his sentiments to
unopposing hearers.

There were moments of greater triumph to come, of
which he yet wotted not, when the sevenfold fulfilment
of his prediction should be past dispute, and attested
from his own walls by more lasting monuments of Jan’s
skill than the too perishable sketch which now stood
like a text for the innkeeper on the mantelpiece of
the Heart of Oak.